No Shadows, No Reflections
by Favnia
Summary: Bella Swan is a vampire who continues her existence by drinking blood. She lives on her own and manages to stay hidden in a big city. One day she meets a young man who happens to know her secret. AU, OOC, Rated M, Bella/Edward
1. Alive

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Twilight

**Alive**

The last thing I remember about my life is wet, cold earth under my hands and agonizing pain… everywhere. I felt the Death craving under my skin, boiling my blood, sticking knives into my bones… I wanted to scream but only hoarse sounds came out of my dry mouth. I was dying and I felt it with every cell of my body. And it was absolutely unfair. I was so young, too young to be dead. Nevertheless, my life as a human was over. When I opened my eyes the next time the world was different to me.

But these memories lead me nowhere; they are pointless, as every day of my existence. I don't feel anything now but thirst, which is burning my throat, create buzzing sounds in my head and reminds me that Death is my only companion in this life, which wasn't chosen by me but by someone else. Someone, whose face is forever erased from my life.

To make this painful thirst stop I seek the only thing that helps me – pure life force which is flowing through veins and its taste is divine. As if life itself comes back to me, making me almost happy, if there is such thing as a happy vampire. Usually I seek for men in dark, dirty streets where only lost souls can be found. I feel bitterness of cheap alcohol on my tongue mixed with deep copper of blood. It's been like that since I remember. Times change but human beings… Not so much. Although for the last century I feel the winds have changed. People became so fast and tense, their intuition developed even though they barely sense it. Thinking million thoughts, doing million things at the same time. I try to hide from them so they don't discover me for who I really am. Human beings have dangerous minds, therefore it's better to stay quiet.

It's been usual evening of fast streets of New York. Big, noisy city where people are so wrapped in their problems that hardly ever notice anything strange. In New York City everything can happen. And murder won't be considered as something beyond normal life of this enormous mechanism. That is why I've been living here for fifty years, although my type of existence unlikely can be considered as living.

I am barefoot, as always when I go hunting. The dress doesn't even cover my knees but it's better for movements. I still prefer clothes covering my arms and legs – this tradition, like a ghost from the past, is still in my mind. I found yet another perfect place to hunt – it's far from the place I've been to last week and no one there has ever been sober. The movement in black darkness of the backstreet caught my attention. Sharp smell of cheap vodka betrayed my new victim's life. Another homeless, broken creature with lost eyes and hollow look – it doesn't matter to him that he is still alive. And it doesn't matter to me. I come closer to him. He's a man of late forties, lying on a pile of garbage with his head leaned against brick wall. I brush off his dirty hands when the homeless man reaches them to me as if he is a small child. I forcefully tilt his head to the side and the man lets out a drunken groan. I kneel before him and look for the better spot to drink. The vein in his red neck is big and blue, and so inviting to bite. He doesn't have any consciousness to resist as my fangs become longer and pierce through the salty skin. The burning in my throat disappears when precious liquid fills my mouth. The man's pulse slows down and stops with his last heartbeat on the Earth.

I stand in front of the lifeless body wiping my red lips. My eyes also have the color of thick blood, a daily reminder about my victims. I need to leave as fast as I can but I hear steps next to the fence which blocks the backstreet. I freeze and look around – there's nowhere to hide, I am trapped, the only exit is through the gates of the fence. It's a man; I hear his breathing, his fast pulse, blood that rushes through his veins and every sigh, the smallest motion he makes: like the way he licks lips with his tongue and wipes sweat from his forehead. He struggles with the gate which has a padlock hanging on an iron chain. But then he gets through the gap in the fence and I can see him. I don't move – he still hasn't notice neither me nor the body.

The man is young, twenty seven or twenty eight years old, his heart beats steadily, yet he looks worn out with his dark hair stuck together with sweat, his wrinkled white shirt. His hands are shaking and in the right one he holds a gun. I can still slip past him if I move carefully and fast. The gun doesn't scare me. But then I see something that makes me stay where I stand: he loads his gun with silver bullets. I would never confuse silver with anything in the world. Silver is my weakness, the most frightening thing I can imagine. Or should I say the only frightening thing for me, and the mere thought of touching silver is a torture.

Suddenly a loud masculine voice brakes ringing silence and multitude of thoughts inside my head. "C'mon, little one, don't be so shy. I know you're here." This man has a powerful voice with the tone dictating to obey. He is well-built and tall, moving with grace of a cat, or even a vampire. And I can't help thinking that he knows exactly who I am. The silver bullets in his gun waiting to be shot are not just a coincidence. I quietly take a step to the wall at my left and make a desperate leap on it. My nails are strong enough to dig between the bricks, yet I see that the wall itself is not strong enough to hold me, and red bricks are old and keep crushing under my hands. But if I fall the man in a white shirt most likely will shoot me down. I try to climb the wall with little hope to get to the roof without making a lot of noises. Meanwhile, the man's voice continues to speak and I know that he is standing next to the dead body which lies at the opposite wall. "I've killed thousands of your kind with silver bullets." I feel how he raises his hand and points the gun in my back. My only thought is that I don't want to die again, I won't be able to go through this agony once more, and I already feel the Death watching me through the gunpoint. Then the brick I've been holding to crushes under my nails, my other hand lets go the wall and I am falling the exact same moment as the gun fires. Bullet hits the wall and some more bricks crush covering my hair with red dust and I run away from there, through the same gap in the fence, away from my murder and possible murderer. I realize this is the first time in my timeless existence I've been scared to death by a human. And I've never felt more alive.


	2. Prey

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Twilight

**Prey**

I needed to calm down and think rationally but instead I just kept walking the streets, passing people with their beating hearts, bright neon sideboards desperately seeking for attention, loud cars which lived in their own technical world… And once again I felt like I was on some other planet which didn't even resemble my own world where I died long time ago.

That young man with silver bullets could become a serious issue. He clearly knew who I was and also knew my weakness. And when he said that he has killed thousands of my kind… I hoped he was exaggerating, there's no way he could track down many vampires in one place. Not in big cities. New York is full of loners like me, but we never communicated and even if we had to face each other, we never acknowledged it. It rarely happened though: for fifty years spent in New York I've encountered with other vampires three times. The question was whether that boy decided he alone could massacre all the vampires. I was concerned that I'd have to find help to get rid of that young fool. I didn't want to tie myself to any kind of creature - being by myself and deciding on my own was the life I've chosen long time ago. Now I had my new prey and it's my responsibility to deal with him. If there won't be any young boy with nihilistic thoughts, there won't be any problem. In fact, it looked like he wanted to let me go with that message of him killing vampires. Maybe he was bored as much as I was? That little game he started, thinking he could stand against me. Or perhaps he was motivated by strong feeling of revenge. Either way, I had to find out his intentions. I'd recognize him once I heard his heartbeat.

I lived in a small apartment that barely fit for human habitation: no electricity. Just a huge bed in the middle of an empty room and a bathtub in the darkness of square bathroom with shabby walls. I always left windows open but crimson curtains were always closed. It was dark and cold and featureless. Although the bed and the bath revealed my human habits – all vampires have them, something that reminds us that we all came from human beings. Some vampires were showing off by drowning deeper into humans' life and becoming some sort of clowns with all the money people are so fond of. But I didn't see that as a necessity. What I wanted was just to be clean and wait out days in comfort.  
As the dawn broke I covered myself with sheets and waited thinking about silly boy who was so fond of playing games with dangerous minds. I had to find him first. I wondered what his blood tasted like. I remembered his shaky hands and trembling lips and sweat on his forehead and involuntarily licked my lips although I already ate.

But time passed and I didn't find anything about that particular human. It looked like he disappeared, and that wouldn't do any good. I had to eat, too. I felt the way thirst got into my body ripping my throat apart with burning as if it was the Sun. My mouth was dry and I barely could move my tongue – my strength was leaving me. Yet I had to create a plan if I wanted to catch the bastard who wanted to take my life. I wished I haven't waited for so long to get to business, I wish I'd just kill the guy right when we first met but I was so shocked that someone would even dare to go after a vampire…

I waited until midnight. Then, when the streets were full of electric lights but faces were safely hidden in the darkness, I came out of the building. Ringing noise filled my ear which wasn't a good sign. I should have eaten earlier - now I had to fight it otherwise I'd kill the first person I met. I had to put all my strength into running, no time left; I almost couldn't see the road. All I could feel were humans' beating hearts. My teeth hurt from clutching, legs were shaking, yet I was running until it would be safe to stand still, find my victim and capture it without being caught.

Suddenly I heard it – a living being, breathing hard and fast, taking unsteady steps towards me. I stopped. I didn't want to – I wanted to continue running further away, but I could almost taste blood. It was there. My prey was there with its heart beating fast, pushing blood through veins… How could I resist?

"Hey, babe! Wanna have fun?" – My prey spoke behind my back. He was young, a living, breathing boy... Warm with copper liquid running through his body. I shook my head. I wanted him closer. I need it, so the noise in my head would stop and my teeth would stop acing. If I'd have to walk towards him then there would be nothing left of him, just a deformed corpse with his entrails inside out. But then no one of his kind would ever recognize him. I was gracious enough to leave this opportunity to them. But I couldn't even speak like a person anymore; nothing human was left inside me, only animalistic instincts. He stepped closer. "What are you doing here, all alone? It's dangerous for a girl like you..."

I turned around. For a brief moment I saw a knife shining in his hand but then all I could see were blue veins. He stepped closer to me with his sleeves up and I saw marks from needles in the boy's arms when he raised the knife. His veins looked like they were begging to be fed from. I wasn't particularly fond of addicts yet his soul was gone, and his veins were almost glowing in the streetlight. And I couldn't stop myself even if I wanted to. I jumped on the boy, closing my teeth around his arm, letting warm blood flood his shirt. A heart-wrenching cry filled the street as was streaming down my throat. The boy's pulse slowed down and his convulsions almost ceased when I heard someone clapping behind my back. I whirled around never letting go the addict's hand that was still bleeding.

"Bravo!" – That was him, the man whom I saw a week ago. He was wearing a black suit with a tie and white shirt and looked much cleaner than the last time I saw him. He headed to me with his hands in the pockets of his neat black pants. His heart didn't lose its steady calm rhythm. He stopped a meter away from me with a smile playing on his thin lips which made his cheekbones captivatingly sharp. I wasn't mistaken with my definition of him. Indeed, he did look like a vampire. – "Look at the mess you've made." He nodded at the body and his smile became even wider. Unhealthy gloss suddenly appeared in his eyes.

"Who are you?" – My voice still wasn't human enough, it reminded of a cat purring after being fed. I finally let go the hand I've been clutching and it lifelessly fell at my feet. I quickly stood up, so the crazy stalker I've got wouldn't look down at me while I was on my knees.  
"I am Edward." – Suddenly my prey had a name. And it got closer shortening the distance between us. The man lazily held out his hand. His fingers were long and reminded of spider legs, reaching to entwine my wrist. His smooth voice was almost hypnotic. – "And I don't have a gun with me so you are free to kill me whenever you decide to."

I ignored his hand and his attempt to talk with me. But somehow I wanted to know more about this strange human Edward before I killed him. The smell of freshly shed blood was still in the air and it intoxicated me. That's why Edward decided to talk to me after I hunt. I was so distracted I didn't even hear his heartbeat before he indicated his presence. I became blind.

"Aren't you afraid of me?" – I looked into his eyes searching for a sign of fear, anxiety, awe... Anything human. But his eyes were somewhat empty, no emotions showed. Just cold determination.  
"I admit I am a little fascinated by shade of your eyes." - He leaned a bit so our heads were on the same level. – "But fear? It would offensive to a woman like you."

He didn't move with his face still close to mine. He held my gaze with his empty yet expressive green eyes. I could feel his masculine smell and it excided me more than the sight of blood. But the sight of his blood tempted me to action. I felt my mouth open wide when my got fangs longer and I uttered with great force the last words in Edward's life.

"I am not a woman. I am a vampire. You need to learn the difference."


End file.
